Special Purpose Islamic Regiment

The Special Purpose Islamic Regiment (SPIR) was an Islamic jihadist paramilitary organization which was active from 1996 to 2006. It was founded by Arbi Barayev and was one of the main hostage-taking, kidnapping, and oil-smuggling groups operating in Chechnya during the lawless period following the First Chechen War's end in 1996, and it was responsible for the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis. Barayev was killed in 2001, and his nephew Movsar Barayev took over the SPIR; he died during the theater crisis. The SPIR's membership declined from 1,000 in 1998 to 100 in 2004, and the United States designated the SPIR as a terrorist group in 2004. By 2006, the group had become defunct.